Neighbours

My neighbours are an interesting bunch. There's the grandmother, who caused a bit of a ruckuss a few months back. We kept hearing a squawking from next door. Mom thought maybe they had a parrot; I thought it was someone possessed by demons. The noise continued for a couple of weeks, and eventually we were able to hear unintelligible muttering mixed with the squawks, confirming my suspicions. She was taken away to the hospitable one night, squawking at the paramedics. She no longer squawked after she returned home. Word through the grapevine is that she has passed away recently.

The children, who must be in their late teens, early 20's, get into violent arguments, threatening to kill one another. I've often seen cars pull up late at night, the son (or father) going out to them briefly. The parents are often heard late into the night, drunkenly partying (our walls are paper-thin).

One night, as I was trying to sleep, another fight broke out. There was screaming and crying, and shortly after, the daughter and a friend went outside. The girl was sobbing/angrily slurring (my window has gaps in the seams which allow noise in even more than the walls) about how she hated her father. Her friend was telling her that she shouldn't put up with this anymore, "hitting her so hard she bled, cleaning up the blood, before hitting her again." Every once in a while, the son would step out to yell at her, she telling him off each time. She drunkenly spewed about how her father "works during the day to make money to do cocaine the rest of the time,'' that he was the one who got her "hooked on heroin." At one point, the father stepped out, yelling at her to come back inside. She refused, saying she was going to "go die in the snow," that her death would be "on his hands." She wandered off, though she seemed to only be walking in circles around the block.

The police arrived shortly after, though all they did was ask a couple questions and leave, seemingly satisfied.

Scar

I have a scar on my right elbow. The story of how I got it reads something like a children's book in its repetitiveness.

When I was in grade 1 I fell off my bike, ripping up my elbow. Mom made a bandage of toilet paper and tape, for we didn't have any band aids big enough. All was fine until I tried to remove it later; it had fused with the scab. I was forced to re-open the wound to get the bandage off. We eventually got it to scab over without band aids. Later that week in school, I was playing on the jungle gym during recess. I jumped off a platform, but landed on my elbow. The wound of course tore open, making a bloody mess of my jacket. I had to go to the office to get the gash cleaned up; they even washed my jacket. Later in the week, my class was downfield for gym. It had recently rained, and the ground was incredibly muddy. We were running laps when I slipped, landing on my elbow, and tearing it open yet again.

Within only a week, I had managed to rip open my elbow 4 times.

Old Age: -2 Str, Dex, and Con; +1 Int, Wis, and Cha

I don't dread getting old. I'd love to look distinguished with grey hair, or if I lose my hair, to have wigs of hairstyles I never could have achieved with what I previously had. While bad knees, back problems, etc. will be unpleasant, I look forward to using an awesome cane. Intricately-carved, with stones and metal fittings...Probably more than one, depending on the occasion.

Ottawa

I recently spent a week with my uncle in Ottawa. I'd been experiencing a lot of anxiety the past couple months, going stir crazy. This was a big step for me; I've never gone a a big trip by myself before. It was terrifying and exciting. I gained a ton of XP (I believe I even levelled-up). On the bus ride there, I had a burst of initiative and struck up a conversation with the traveller who sat beside me. Laura and I talked all the way to Ottawa, and I now have a new friend!

My uncle and his fiancée worked during the day most of the week, so I was on my own to explore the city. I had come with a list of things I wanted to see, mostly museums. They have a special admissions "passport", which gets you into 9 museums in the area for only $35. Ottawa is a lovely city. There are statues around every corner (sadly, a dying art these days), the architecture of even the most mundane buildings, such as apartments, has style, intricate brick work. The transit system is highly efficient (unlike the rubbish they call public transportation here in KW), with double-length buses connected in the middle by a swivel device which looks like an accordion. Everything is bilingual. You see people holding hands all over, including many gay couples. I found there were a great many beautiful people there, too (I think it's from the mixture of French).

I first went to Parliament Hill. There was a free tour of Centre Block, which is simply gorgeous, but at only half an hour, it was quite rushed. The Library of Parliament, which I had wanted to see most, did not disappoint. There's something so appealing to me about circular libraries. The observation floor of the Peace Tower, just under the clock, afforded a grand view of the city. All 3 buildings of Parliament are built of various types of stone symbolic to Canada. At the back of the Hill is a small sanctuary for the stray cats in the area; they come and go as they please, paying little attention to the humans.

I went with my uncle to Little Ray's Reptile Zoo, a reptile sanctuary, on the outskirts of town. They take in discarded pets. We got to see bearded dragons, a rat snake, and alligators being fed. We also got to touch a wood turtle, a tiny possum, an albino Burmese python, and hold an emperor scorpion. The scorpion was neat. They don't feel like spiders, which barely touch you as they walk on you; their pointed legs press firmly into your hand. Along with numerous reptiles, there were also many amphibians, a number of arachnids, 2 skunks, a macaw, and a group of marmosets. The marmosets would sometimes watch you, mirroring your head movements (if they paused long enough from zipping around their enclosure, anyway). Ray's had some great warning signs: "if you put your fingers in the macaw's cage, it will bite you" and "if you throw something into the alligators' pen, we will make you go in and retrieve it'.

I also went with my uncle to the Canada Aviation and Space Museum. Kids got to ride around in pedal cars shaped like planes; it looked fun. We saw some lovely aircraft, including parts of the Avro Arrow, a Harrier (one of my favourites), a Spitfire, a Lancaster Bomber, a Sopwith Camel, and the Messerschmitt Kommet. There was a model display which explained how First World War fighters were able to fire their machine guns through the propeller.

My uncle's fiancée and I went to the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Gatineau, Quebec, just across the canal. Taflemusik, a group my violin teacher had played with, was holding a concert in the great hall. There was a postal gallery, with some neat things like how people would hollow out loaves of bread to smuggle alcohol in the mail. There was also a lot of native art and artifacts, including metal swords (I didn't know they had those). The main display was a trip of Canada throughout its history. It was like wandering through a town, there was so much to see. It started with the arrival of the Vikings and kept going. We wandered through the town gates into military forts, early homes, shops, churches, whaling operations, an oil rig, on and on. We weren't sure it would ever end. Everywhere you turned there was something else. There was a child's coffin in the window of the furniture/undertaker's shop. Behind the Ukrainian church was an outhouse; if you tried to open the door, someone would shout, "hey!" There was a store selling all sorts of neat things, like a banjo for $20. The Chinese dry cleaner's had a wax man at a counter having a conversation with another man behind a clothes line (his silhouette, washing laundry, was projected onto the hanging sheet). Numerous times we stepped out from a building onto a cobblestone street, the stores and lamp posts changing appearance as the times progressed. The ceiling was made up of a number of canvas pieces, lit dark blue as we entered the exhibit, and becoming pink/orange as we neared the end. The top floor consisted of mini galleries devoted to influential Canadians.

I met up with Laura and we went to the Canadian Museum of Nature. They had a live black widow spider (another thing crossed off my bucket list)! The marine gallery had a blue whale skeleton, various sea creatures, and an aquarium of pretty fish. There was also smokey quartz the size of my head with 500 thousand year-old water trapped inside (this is known as enhydro). To get to the top floor we had to ascend a glass tower built onto the front of the castle-like museum. A short glass walkway connected the two. Terrifying. The mineral gallery was superb. Though smaller than the ROM's, it had the same touchscreen technology for each display case. There were a lot of meteorites, some absolutely gorgeous garnets and dioptase, and many minerals I've never heard of before. The security guard there was quite knowledgeable, even telling us of his own experiences visiting mines up north. Apparently you can bring in your specimens to be identified by their geologists! There was an activity area across the hall where kids could earn points to trade in for mineral, fossil, or insect specimens. The most valuable treasures cost 100 points, and points could be accumulated over many visits to the museum. I was jealous; some of the gems they had would have cost me quite a bit to buy in a store. The bird gallery had many species I want to see in the wild some day, including swallows and ravens. The dinosaur gallery was great. It had a life-size diorama of 2 Daspletosaurs attacking a heard of Chasmosaurs. The skeletons included a Carnotaurus and a Dromaeosaurus. I was very impressed with this museum. The cafe was reasonably-priced, with delicious food. I had a potato and curry soup which was not overdone with the curry. The gift shop had the best selection of gems of any other museum. I got many affordable specimens of minerals not already in my collection, including the very rare weloganite.

I left Ottawa early because I felt I was about to get sick (I didn't), but it was an incredible trip.

Hospitable

Yesterday I went to the hospital (Saint Mary's Emerge has such better wait times) because I noticed a huge increase in the number of bubbles, squiggles, and specks of light in my vision. My doctor told me to get this checked out if it were to happen. I was only 5 minutes away from the hospital at the time, so I headed over, and was transferred from Triage (where I learned from a conversation I overheard that the smallest shark is the Dwarf Shark) to Minor Treatment in 15 minutes. The man I followed in was holding a dish towel on his head, his hair matted with blood. I found out later that he had fallen an hit his head; he got 15 stitches. I was seen within 3 hours. The doctor didn't see anything immediately wrong, but he referred me to an ophthalmologist. I was told it would take over a week to hear from their office. They called me today -my appointment is tomorrow morning! I'm not sure whether my getting in SO soon is a good or bad thing...

P.S. I've been meaning to mention my alarm clock. My mother got me a neat rolling alarm clock for Christmas. The screen and buttons give it the appearance of a ridiculously happy face. It seems to take delight in waking me, as it rolls around on its wheels and spins on its axle.

Big Brother

Sometime after my father died, I started going out with a Big Brother. Martin seemed like a nice guy. We went to movies, he got me lots of things, and encouraged me to start reading adult-sized novels and write stories. He was tough on me, though. If I became upset at something, or was scared to try something, he would put me down, saying things like "are you a mouse or a man?" When I would start to cry, he would just become angrier. Eventually I couldn't take it anymore, his abuse was occurring nearly every time we went out, and I refused to see him again.

A few days ago, I was grocery shopping with Mom, and we ran into him. I hate having to interact with people from my past; I like to keep them there. I shook his hand, politely chatting with him. He was all reminiscent about our model building projects. I don't know if he remembered hurting me. I can never tell with this sort of thing. The encounter rattled me a little.

J-Mas

I went out for dinner with my mother to Ye's Sushi for my 22nd birthday. I hate fish, and was hoping there would be other types of food (yay adventure!); there was. It was all-you-can-eat and we sampled various dishes. I tried shitake mushroom, just to say that I have (it was disgusting, like all other mushrooms). I ordered the bacon-wrapped bamboo (asparagus that I actually liked) twice, and for dessert I had a divine mango mousse, with a lengthy wait for the mango aftertaste. I agreed to let Mom tell the staff it was my birthday, but they only sing for you if you have a group of at least 4 people. Throughout our meal, a stern man in all black, Ye, I assume, patrolled the dining area. There was also a daisho, sparkling sayas, behind the cash register. I wonder if they're real...

It was a good day. Then after midnight I vomited. Twice. For the first time since I had to drink charcoal, nearly 4 years ago. I'm not sure if if was due the food, or from the migraine I had. I'd forgotten how awful it feels to wretch.

The House that Burned Down

The House that Burned Down was the second house I've lived in; it was a brick house on Weber Street. We moved there when I was quite young, around 4 years old. The day we arrived is one of my fondest memories. It was a sunny summer day, the lavender-coloured lilacs which lined the side of the driveway giving off their lovely scent. On the wooden porch to the side of the door, we had a large vase filled with dried, long-stalked thistles. The backyard was quite long (to my small mind, anyway). The chain link fence on the left side was lined with rose bushes, and a swing made from rope and a big white pail hung from the tree on the right. I used that swing once to get away from an army of fire ants. There was a tree fort built onto a stump in the back corner; it didn't get much use, and eventually became a ruins. My father had a vegetable garden out back, which I would sometimes help him with (by eating the veggies- the raw broccoli was amazing, as was the rhubarb).

I lived there for about two years, just prior to starting kindergarten, before my parents split up and my mother, sister and I moved into the co-op. My sister and I visited my father every other weekend. One night, my father was washing a bunch of kale to give to friends. He went out back, leaving the tap running; the sink overflowed, flooding the kitchen. I stood on a chair yelling for him. This may have also been the night we were nearly scared to death watching the Gooey Gus episode of Ghost Writer...My father often took us to McDonald's, and we'd sit out back on the picnic table in the summer, playing with the happy meal toys (which still came in a box).

At some point, my father's girlfriend was varnishing a dresser or something, and the house caught fire. She said she didn't know what happened, though she was a smoker, and none too bright...Regardless, no one was hurt, but the house was destroyed. We got to see it being demolished with the wrecking ball. My father set up lawn chairs across the street; it was pretty cool.

My father lived in a couple of places on that same street, across from the spot where the house used to be. He turned the entire plot in a garden. The garden, I believe, was taken care of for a little while after his death, though the spot has sat empty for years now. I went there a few years ago, and a piece of the rope was still tied to the tree.

Random Encounters

Here are some of the odd people I've come across in my travels.

*'Those Who Fight' begins to play*

• Walking home down the Iron Horse Trail with my friend, Sam, a guy appeared out of the bushes. He looked like your standard-variety thug. We walked past and and he fell in behind us, following us a ways, obviously up to no good. Watching our backs, on one of our checks we found that he was....gone. Vanished, without a sound. All people make some amount of noise as they move, and we checked behind us often enough that we would have seen where he had gotten to...

• On the way to the Multicultural Festival one year, I was accosted by a transgendered person. They enquired as to the size of my genitals and whether I would give them a look. I declined.

• During one of our weekly D&D sessions at Gemini Jetpack, a guy came into the store and proceeded directly to the back wall near our table. He pressed himself up to the door of the back room and began to lick it, lovingly caressing it with his tongue. After a minute or so he left, without a word.

• While out walking once, I saw a man on the sidewalk across the street. We did not interact, and I had only to glimpse him for everything in me to tell me that he was not to be trusted.

• After dinner at Checkerboard family restaurant, I went to the washroom. Opened the door to find it was already occupied by an old man (it's a single-person room). He said I could come in. I declined.

• While riding the bus once, I saw a girl a few seats over: jaw length red hair, petite. She made my heart beat really hard, and it felt like the kind of anxiety you feel you'll die from. I'm not sure what it was that caused this. She was pretty, though not unearthly so...

• MADD called. This is roughly how the conversation went:
• MADD: Is Mr. or Mrs. Koenderink home?
• Me: Speaking.
• MADD: We thank you for your previous donation. *spiel about needing more money* What can you contribute?
• Me: I don't know. My mother handles this sort of thing.
• MADD: *silence*
• MADD: May I talk with her?
• Me: She's out at the moment.
• MADD: When would be a good time for me to call back?
• Me: I honestly have no idea.
• MADD: *angrily* Well, you said you were Mr. Koenderink! *hangs up*

Jane

Not only do Jeff Martin and Jim Morrison look exactly the same, but they also share the initials J.M. Coincidence? Murphy controls those. And, not only do they share the same initials, but you have not written an exceedingly lengthy response and continuation to the very fabric, I think it's flannel, of our quasi-pseudocal anti-existence. That said, I will commence in the act of originating my own concoction of ingeniously produced wordplay, in retribution and spite of your discourtesy. Here lies what I am to have wrought.

PART ONE

“As I was arriving at the conclusion of my shadow's self-concluding, I was unwarrantably misplaced amidst the other antiquated manila-coloured folders by a rather uncomely and brazen chap! Imagine my completely complicated rantings, not to mention the fervour brought on by this little scenario of my shadow. Oh, you should definitely meet her, she's positively concrete in her lucidity. In fact I'm quite of the mind that you'd interact infamously! But to return to the insights of the tall men with the reddest beards, I was in a state of fractured euphoria. The stiff pages were peeling down all around, but solely in the study. It was UTTER perplexity! As I sought to overcome this hill of towering forks, or maybe they were sporks, I don't remember, I was besieged by the most unlikely of antagonists: a tawny gazelle. It's inset, azure eyes sped through me as if I had been gunned down by a microscopic version the largest ultra-death ray of loneliness the universe, and a scant few galaxies outside it, has ever seen in the 18 seconds of it's existence on the astral 747 commercial plane. I knew it's thoughts, and it knew mine - which didn't help the situation as neither of us could understand said thoughts.
“But a young woman behind me sneezed, and a very intricate and delicate sneeze at that. She had ventured hundreds of kilometres from the safety of her cherished big-time university, the type that produced the lowliest of the vilest rot that can be disclosed in these turquoise days. Yes, she was to be a lawyer. She had come from a small triple-parent home, the splendid glistening waterfall of a dwarven marine biologist, an incredibly attractive smokin' hot corporate CEO who was a volcanologist in her spare time, and a dominatrix. Life had been reasonably respecting of her, and she had held sway over many a fabled disc-jockey. She spent an ascertainable amount of minute seasons among the others of the town. May all that is simply atrocious befall Mr. Henry, and his waltzing unclothed across his yard! Bless his shins! Indeed, all was as it should have been, as evidenced by the colouring books. Until that one single day. Thursday. A day like any other, though all were deceived (except the sanitary department, who were able to see through the bullshit). She was just heading toward the casino when, out of the glowing shrubbery, an elf appeared! She had always thought she would be prepared for this kind of thing, but it was not so this day. Paralysed in the swoon of it's indifference, she could do naught but stare at the increasing translucency of it's essence. The finely drawn eyebrows arched above the flashing aqua eyes as it approached her. Sheer terror. A hundred thousand aphids descending from her temples down her perfect, pale skin. She knew. It was about to happen. Now. Why, of all the times? Why now? And then it was there upon her. A stream of silvery tendrils of energy arced through her body as the elf took it away from her. The moment seemed to last an eternity, a mixture of the lowest low and the highest high. It was exhilarating and what could only be described as orange. And in an instant, it was over. The elf gliding away; she, left there in a state of pure undulating staticity. As the thing left her field of vision, she regained sway over the mechanics of her parts. She fell to the foam of the path and began to weep tears of laughter. Never had she experienced a more traumatizing plot twist. Minutes passed before her strength returned and arms reached down to pull her up. She thanked the good Samaritan who had helped her to her feet, and set off on her personal journey. None before her had ever attempted this, not even in the time of Gurmot Ehltnivac. Despite this, she was an ever burning flame of golden determination, presentable to any circumstance.
“She tried to act inconspicuously after sneezing, so as to not disturb our battle. The great gazelle wished her luck in getting her favourite glove back. That elf was indeed a despicable entity for taking it. With that, she continued along among the winding dunes. Her slender figure was swallowed up by the behemoth of the horizon.
“We resumed our struggle. I grasped the very air to my left and hurled it at my beastly opponent, a passing glance as the missile struck it. My attempt was all for naught, maybe even in vain. It's horns elongated and shot outward, arcing, and then plummeting back down, to crash through the sand. The ground was then permeated with tremors, the shaking building and building. And then silence. All was still in that second. And at that the gazelle erupted volumes of searing energy, culminating into an enormous triskelion before dissipating just as quickly. I understood. I treaded off, following the petite footprints in the sand…”

***

PART TWO

The clammy spider leg fingers of exhaustion held tight. She had travelled too long through the dreariness of that granular hell. And that part was over. Presently she was in the midst of a brilliantly blinding grove. The black of the leaves almost unbearable. But she could fend off the spindly digits no longer. The earth reached up to her and she was lost.

***

It had been eight days since his encounter with his blue-eyed adversary. Allan was not even truly certain why he had taken to following this woman. There was just something......something right about her. His curiosity had to be sated. More easily accomplished without the meddling of that sandstorm. He would have shouted at it to make it cease its disruption, but his maw was too preoccupied with finding the water that it didn't have. That was the past though, a very difficult aspect of all things to change. Few creatures could be found here. Odd, deserts usually were home to an abundance of life. Granted, this one didn't seem to have snakeroots. So much blue; a darker shade than most others.
Allan was focusing too much on the scenery. He had to get back to finding her. But how? There were no tracks left. He scanned the endless grey in all directions. One patch of sky to the left was a striking lighter grey; more than that, to him, it felt that that was the way he was supposed to go.

***

She reclaimed her consciousness. The surroundings had been altered. Everything was bright and warm...

***

Allan found himself in a forest of expired carpenters. It seemed half a miracle that the corpses remained upright. "Perhaps it’s the ebony leaves clinging to them," he said to the lime-coloured button of his shirt collar. It offered nothing in response, though it did vomit a glare at him which had a suggestion of a hatred of cherries. Unoffended, this blob of masculinity trudged onward, accidentally stepping on a hammer, which of course caused a micro-fracture in the underground colonies of snail teeth, as well as the implosion of a nearby bumblebee.
Despite the complete lack of evidence to the contrary, Allan joyfully knew that he was ever so close to that aberrantly veiled enigma of the most praised taupe caged within his orifices. He stumbled about for thirty more symmetrical hours.

***

“Where are you?” she bellowed with the ferocity of an immature seahorse. She assumed someone must be responsible for changing her clime without even having the courtesy to inform her with a long distance email from a contaminated island in the Venezuelan Isles. No response, excepting a dry wheeze expelled from a magnificently pumpkin-hued shrub. She stood up, weary of the ox tongues composing the ground tickling the small of her delicate back. She was greeted with a, “Hullo there, Snorbles!”
“H-hello,” she said meekly.
“I’ve not seen you in an orange-clad age, Snorbles, my obtusely acute friend.,” issued from the puss-dripping lips of an insanely refined looking chap straight out of the Dark Ages-themed comic spread of a demented Presbyterian high on sawdust.
“No,” replied the sparkling woman, “I’ve been too terribly busy running errands for the Marquise of Lunderdanty. This exchange of vocalizations continued for quite some time, literally boring to death a rough-skinned wood elf. A mechanized Swedish nurse quickly inhaled his ashes.

***

At last he arrived at his destination. It was a hideously deformed wall of wriggling shoestrings. It had a visage akin to a hag who’s spent too many twilights washing avocados with a taxidermist’s kit. Pinned to it’s supposed neck by thirty-two toothpicks dripping with the blackest gall was a sign. It read: “Where there’s a will, there’s a wading pool”. Now there’s a notion, Allan mused with the selfsame expression a general of the Azores might have worn after putting down a group of splendid fortune tellers.
“Indeed, indeed,” intoned a voice from above his left shoulder which sounded strikingly similar to his cousin Muriel who worked at the all-night ulna shop. “Mudcakes! Is that you?” exclaimed the questing lad. There was a general hissing noise and the sound of hundreds of thousands of clay animation figures charging a well-to-do corporate executive. The stringy wall burst open, showering Allan with day-old honeydew melon rinds.
And there she was, speaking animatedly with a sketchy-looking beast, her hands strangling an imaginary person Allan guessed was her sister’s future boyfriend. He had finally found her. His quest was over. “I’m here!” he exclaimed, startling the woman’s companion into jumping through a conveniently placed window. There was tissue paper everywhere. The mechanical nurse was not amused.
“WHO’S THERE?!” she demanded while looking directly at him. Sensing that something was amiss, she added, “I’m not blind…much.”
Allan began to explain how he had come all this way, as if drawn to her.
“You may call me Sousaphone,” she said regally. “Will you help me track down my adversary?
“Never,” beamed Allan. They set off down a tunnel made of tunnels, for the man who jumped through the window had said the wicked elf went that way…

Camera

Ever play with the focus of your eyes to make the beams from light sources advance toward and recede from your vision?